The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17 to 21 December 2017. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> SUSAN TELTSCHER: Good morning, everybody. Could you please take a seat? We are going to start the session.
Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of ITU it is my great pleasure to welcome you to this open forum on strengthening capacities in international Internet Governance. My name is Susan Teltscher, and I'm head of the capacity building division at the ITU, and this session is in fact organized jointly by ITU, Diplo Foundation and SSIG who are also with me here on the podium and they will be introduced in a few moments.
So, before we start, I would like to say just a few words about why we are having this session here today. In fact, first of all, what I noticed when I looked at the program of the IGF this week, there are actually not a lot of sessions that deal with capacity building orca paucity development, and maybe this is because people take it for granted, because I think everybody agrees this is core to what we are doing when we actually want to achieve development in terms of ICT and bridging the digital divide.
For those of you who were here yesterday, there was the Geneva initiative on capacity development on initial policy that was launched, so that is very much relevant also to topics that we are discussing here today.
So, therefore, I think we have a great opportunity today to make a unique contribution to this debate, specifically focusing on capacity building and capacity development, and we would like to use the time in the session to look at what are some of the main needs and the gaps when it comes to capacity development, and also hear from the different panelists and also from you what action could or should be taken looking forward to the work in this field.
And, I would like to mention as a matter of background to this session that earlier this year ITU has published a report called reviewing global Internet Governance capacity development and identifying opportunities for collaboration. Now this, is a very long title, but in essence, their report provides a very comprehensive overview of the core topics that are related to Internet Governance, and then looks at actually who is doing what in the field of capacity development and what are some of the needs and gaps that we need to address looking forward. And, this report, in fact, was commissioned to two consultants, and it was led by Diplo Foundation. I recommend, if you would like to look at some of the mapping of what is currently out there in capacity development and Internet Governance, please take a look at this report which is saw veil lab on the ITU academy website.
So, one of the key guiding principles in this report was to keep the multistakeholder approach, and this is also our guiding principle in ITU in our work on international -- in Internet Governance capacity building. This is why here today we are organizing this session together with other key stakeholders in this field.
So, with this, I would like now to introduce our moderator,
Mrs. Constance Bommelaer, she is Senior Director of Global Internet Policy at ISOC. I think you probably all know her. She has been on many sessions this week, and it's my great pleasure, and thank you so much, Constance, for having accepted our invitation to moderate this session, and I will
give the floor to you.
>> Constance Bommelaer: Thank you very much, Susan, and good morning everyone. Thank you also for organizing what I think is a very important session to present an update on this report. We've seen throughout the week the importance of Internet Governance discussions. We're also seeing that they're gaining an importance. You just read the press, and you understand that as the Internet impacts all fields, all aspects of people's lives, people, citizens, users, young people are more interested in understanding the governance of the Internet, but also understanding how they can participate and make sure that they can shape their digital future. They can make decisions for themselves.
So, thank you again for presenting this report and organizing this session.
This session is also an opportunity with our distinguished panelists to dive a little deeper, look into some of the concrete issues, questions that professionals in this field have bumped into. Are we really using the right methodology, the right tools? Communication techniques evolve every day. This is also an invitation for some of us Diplo Foundation, the (?) society and the ITU, many organizations involved in Internet Governance capacity building to continuously reassess tests or methodologies and make sure we are delivering the best service possible to our different stakeholders.
The other important question I would say really is, are we reaching the right targets? The risk in some of these for au is that we may be talking to people who have already been evangelized, who already know our definite works, who have an idea of how to reach some of us here in the room and who can facilitate access to capacity --
(Audio pause)
>> It to users to policy makers and businesses. It is quite diverse, and something needs to be done to improve that.
Then the report really looks at the demand and the supply side. So, it looks at what is currently out there, what are the gaps, and where should we refocus in the future.
So, some of the gaps that it finds with respect to the target audience is that we really need to target the training at different levels. We have to distinguish between introductory, intermediary, and advanced levels, because participants also differ, and we all mix them together, we are not getting the right impact.
We also need to target different audiences. So, this course is for policy makers, this is for legislate terse this, is for SMEs, for marginalized communities. So, that is also something that is not yet a very organized along these lines.
Then, there are a few things in terms of the delivery methods, and because the report also looks at how capacity building is delivered, what methodologies are actually being used. So, there is a recommendation to be more specific of what is really a course versus what is a workshop. Focus more on e learning and online tools, and also the issue of multi lingual is a big gap, because almost most of what is being done now in capacity building is in English, so that is something that needs to be addressed, as well.
In terms of the topics there are some recommendations, including that human rights perspective should be applied across all the areas that are covered. So, right now it's quite segmented. This is focusing on this topic, this topic, this topic, but the links are often not there, and some issues, like the rights issues should be covered across all the different areas that are being delivered.
Another issue that the report finds and makes recommendations is to combine technical and policy aspects in the delivery. So, not to address them independently like it is often done, including also by ITU. Focused very much on technical issues, but often in the capacity development is a disconnected and they should be combined because they should be considered in a more holistic approach.
Then, there is a gap in terms of topics on everything that is related to the new evolving infrastructures and technologies, including IoT, Cloud computing, Big Data and machine learning. I think that is not a big surprise because these are all evolving topics, and that should be considered further in the future.
Now, specifically for ITU and this is something we are now looking into in our work, in the future there are some recommendations that we should be more proactive in convening a multistakeholder dialogue. So, for all the stakeholders involved in this capacity development field to bring together either physically, and we are trying to do this through sessions like this one, and others, sorry, closer to the micro phone, and also online, and we have actually an online portal, the ITO academy, and we are using this to create a space where we can bring together under on one side all the different activities that are being carried out in capacity building across the different stakeholder groups.
Another recommendation was to focus on policy makers. This is also the ITO membership. So, this is obviously also the mandate of the ITU to have main target group policy makers and legislators. And, then in the development of our activities to work very closely with other stakeholders. This is also our priority. If we go to the regional delves adapted to the regional priorities, we have started to do this in -- through regional workshop we delivered this year jointly with Diplo in the Americas region where we also tried to target specifically the priorities in that region.
Then, some of the other recommendations include, I mentioned it before to encourage the rights based approach and include that in the topics that are being covered by the trainings and the workshops to have a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach. In the past we have very much focused only on targeted technical issues, but that that should be moved towards a more comprehensive and holistic view. And, topics covered. To work more with universities. This is a priority in ITU in general. We have academia members, and we are trying to work more with academic institutions in general in our capacity building work, including on Internet Governance. We had a meeting with academia last September in Budapest with more than 36 universities and one of the feature topics was also Internet Governance. So, we are trying to look into -- these are just some of the recommendations. There are others. We are just looking into some of these in taking them forward in our work in the future, and I will close here at this stage and I look forward to hearing, perhaps, other suggestions from you in this regard later on.
>> SUSAN TELTSCHER: Thank you very much. It is very useful at this stage to have a clear idea thanks to the study of the current strengths, but also the possible gaps in the capacity building landscape.
Tereza, maybe I'll turn to you, because Diplo has been operating in this field for a number of years. Diplo is recognized really as a leading institution in this field, so your insights are very precious from that perspective.
What are the main gaps? That are the main needs that need to be addressed according to you?
>> TEREZA HOREJSOVA: Thank you very much Constance, and thank you also Susan and the ITU for the opportunity to work with you on the report, which really brought attention to some of the crucial issues when it goes to the gaps and needs that you have summarized a few minutes ago.
Constance, you ask me about the Developing Countries, and their needs in particular, and I'm sure we will hear much more from Tracy, but obviously these countries are disadvantaged by definition. It might be because of the size, it might be because of the availability of in-house expertise to provide training. It might be simply because there might be more pressing issues, so to say to deal with rather than Internet Governance, it has to do with remote ness. It has to do with the language issue and was highlighted. And, a topic that I think shouldn't be avoided, it's also a question.
For instance, what we have found out in the work of Diplo Foundation, one of the best learning or training takes place by emersion, by attending meetings like the IGF. And, it is very difficult for some Developing Countries, not only Governments, but of course other stakeholders to even justify participation of meetings of this kind.
It is also another problem that we shouldn't shy away from naming, because also the availability of neutral capacity development and training activities. How do countries that are disadvantaged make sure that the training they are getting is balanced?
We also would like to stress that there is definitely a need for kind of longer term capacity development activities, because while shorter half-day training or briefing sessions are excellent and useful, the real learning takes place if it is a longer-term nature.
Another important need that should be addressed is to tailor the training to the specific region, specific countries, and specific stakeholder group, but also specific level, because there is a difference if the training is deliberate, let's say at the level of the ministers who might also need to raise their capacities, or at the level of stuff and officials that are just entering the world of Internet Governance and digital policy.
One more, the Diplo, for instance, has tried to push for and implement and that has proven quite efficient is start with online learning followed, let's say, by very practical policy research, experience, and followed by a true emersion, be it at the meeting of this kind or at the different type of meeting.
Coming back to the question of resources, I would like to touch upon kind of the elephant in the room, and that this who pays? Who was the responsibility? Because good capacity development activities do need resources, but who does the responsibility to finance this I will with? How can we insure that capacity developments are sufficiently funded? Because, this is not 1,000-year-old question. How do we achieve diversity among the capacity development provide? What responsibility should lie with the providers or the government itself and this is an essential issue.
I would maybe close by that while there are many organizations dealing with capacity development, and I would like to appreciate the work that ISOC is Don, ICANN, the IT you, the global forum on cyber expertise, which is really a Pioneer in these regards, there should be more synchronization. I can say that we do talk with each other and try to complement each other, but we can do still more. And, I will probably stop here.
Thank you.
>> Constance Bommelaer: Thank you, Tereza. I think what I'm hearing is the importance of being neutral and definitely inclusive in our approach to capacity building, and this raises the question of making sure that we reach Developing Countries and LDCs, of course.
From that perspective, I've been wondering, are there specific methodologies we should be applying to those specific communities, and perhaps this is a question where Olga, you can help us with.
>> OLGA CAVALLI: These tables are so huge. I'm so short.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for inviting me. And, thanks for organizing this interesting session. And, also, commend ITU for doing that report, which we contributed with our experience and also thanks to Diplo and to ISOC for all the work that you do about this issue.
I would like to share with you our experience in the South School of Internet Governance. We have our tenth year in 2018, and why we thought it was a good idea in 2008, because we looked at the statistics of participation of Latin America and the Caribbean in the IGF and in other meetings and it was the lowest of all the regions, even lower than Africa. So, we started to analyze what was happening, and it was not only a question of funding, but also a question of not knowing what was it about, how should they participate? Why they should be interested in that? At all a multi staying holder level. It was an issue for Governments, Civil Society, for universities, so this is why we thought this was a good idea to create this school.
So, the objective of the school has been always enhancing the participation of the Latin America and Caribbean region in all of the Internet Governance debate spaces and participation spaces, and, of course, try to train the future leaders of the Internet Governance that could come from Latin America and the Caribbean.
So, the focus of our school has been always been outreach. Trying to reach as much fellows as possible. And, I'm not only talking about young people, there are young people that we have never had age limit. We want to include all of the people in the ecosystem.
Other thing that we decided from Day 0 was rotating among countries. This is a huge work, but it's worth the effort. Because, every time you go to a different Country, you race the awareness in that Country. It had happened that after we organized the school in a Country, the first IGF was organized all within the school or after the school or ISOC chapters were organized after the school, or perhaps in some governments, a special area to deal with Internet Governance was created after the school. So, we found that rotation among countries extremely valuable for bringing the message to the different communities.
Other thing that we do is we do an open call for participation. We don't have a special budget for promoting the schools. We use social networks. We use all our people that know us in the community, and then the selection of the fellows, which we get, like, 500, about that applications. It's made by special committee of experts, and the local host, which plays a relevant role. And, we try to build a group of fellows as much diverse as possible in relation with where they come from, the countries that they represent, language, stakeholders, and age. Of course, 50/50 gender balance from Day 0. That is my rule from Day 0.
Also, we always had simultaneous translation, because the language barrier is a big issue in Latin America. Many people can read English or maybe can understand, but perhaps they have difficulties in understanding as a native speaking person from United States or Europe. So, all the schools from day one had simultaneous translation, English, Spanish and the two times we have organized it in Brazil, once in Sao Paulo in 2010 and this year in Rio de Janero and de Vargas. We have simultaneous translation in three languages, English, Spanish and Portuguese. So, we think that is very important.
Also since 2012 we started to have remote participation. So, all the school we organize is open to everyone. If you cannot get the fellowship you can follow it online. It is English, Spanish or English, Spanish and for he was guess in the room. This year we also added a different thing. It's also in YouTube. You can go and check all the sessions in YouTube channel of the school Julia Vargas foundation in the three languages. So, if you're interested in the content maybe you can see it afterwards because everything is online.
So far we have trained on site more than 2000 fellows. Many of them are very highly involved in different organizations. Some of them are already leaders and some others are involved. And, we have no idea how many thousands we have trained online, but that's also a nice thing to have in mind.
Nobody pays for participating in the school. We grant fellowships to all the students and they get hotel and meals and the training course.
But, nobody pays for that.
We have some exceptions that we paid tickets, but that's -- we don't have that budget for that. But, sometimes if there is a limitation from one or two students, we can do that.
So, we are launching a book about the experience of the last ten years. It's Internet Governance in the Americas, and what we have learned from the experience, and maybe I stop here, the great value for the students is the network that they get at the end. Among them, because they have the remains, they still have their own what's up groups and their own online groups, and the network that they create with the experts that they usually share more than one time in a panel they share a lunch, they share coffee, they share dinner during the five days of intensive training. So, after they finish, that should be the first approach to the Internet Governance, then they have their own network to go, perhaps, to ICANN fellowship or ISOC fellow shim or ISOC ambassador or to get more in-depth training.
>> Thank you very much Olga. Very great to have concrete examples feedback on how do you this in the field, training involves targeting the right audiences.
So, we've talked a lot about involving Developing Countries in LDCs and capacity building programs, and the purpose of course is to make sure they are fully equipped to participate in a meaningful way. Not only in intergovernmental conversations, but also in other I would say Internet Governance I would say conversations that could take place or organized by either the business community or technical community.
Khaled, you are very actively involved in some of the conversations that take place in the ICANN circles. What, from your perspective, would be the target audience that we need to involve better in some of these capacity building efforts?
>> KHALED KOUBAA: Thank you, Constance, and thank you ITU and Diplo for asking ICANN to contribute to this workshop.
Clearly, as we have seen and heard in many other workshop
sessions in Geneva, those days capacity development is very
important element. So, ICANN, of course, has a very specific
role within the Internet Governance ecosystem, and we are not
responsible for general Internet issues, nor for the content.
We do self-engage with other bodies, whether technical community, such as ISOC or Internet history or Internet national body such as the UN office of drugs and crimes, or the ITU to provide trainings on the NS issues.
A couple of examples to illustrate that point, first we have worked with the Commonwealth secretariat in Anton on cybercrime training in developing countries particularly with respect to Governments, police and judiciary. We also had the chance to work with the UN office of drugs and crime in Asia. Again, to train on law enforcement officers and the Judiciary on the DNS and how to direct criminal activity with respect to domains.
We also have done a lot of capacity building workshops for (?) representative, the government advisory council and the ICANN. The aim of those workshops, in fact, is to close the gap of the technical knowledge between some gap members, especially coming from the Developing Countries.
Another ICANN (?) and avoid the lost in translation situation that we face -- that we have faced in the past.
We did somehow until now great number of those workshops. In 2017 we did one in Kenya, one in South Africa, and one in recently in Abu Dhabi and NUE. And, in the future, we will be having four workshops, beginning February
2018 until June, one in Nepal, Puerto Rico and Panama.
Another level also, more general level, I personally believe that when it comes to strengthening the IG capacity for policy makers it's important that the different players coordinate together. We all have our part to play, and have limited resources. This application is simply counterproductive for everyone, in the same way as ICANN would not do training on data
protection or human rights, we no not and agency to do training
on DNS.
On a very personal level, an experience that I personally had in the past few months in (?) we organize the first time the Tanzania school of Internet Governance. We did it in fact the day before the national IGF.
The idea was to train a few newcomers on the concept of the Internet Governance and put them the day after into practice by attending the national IGF. I think this is a very important element to try to mix the theory and the learning and the capacity building with practicing the IGF. I think not only providing the theory will help, but also help anyone to attend regional IGF, national IGF, Global IGF. This will make easy for him to understand who are the player, what are the issues. This is the most important part, I think.
>> Constance Bommelaer: Thank you very much, Khaled. I like your expression, avoiding to be lost in translation. I think the expression is self-explanatory really is about the mission of any capacity building exercise and effort.
The IGF is also a good place to not only learn, but also spot some of the emerging Internet related issues that suddenly we realize we need to build more knowledge about, we need to explore further to make sure that we as professionals, but also as stakeholders, will be able to participate in a meaningful way in any of these conversations.
Tracy, as a ICT strategist, but also, I believe as an individual who is experienced some of these fellowships, ambassadorships, training opportunities, I believe you were actually one of the unit societies ambassadors to the IGF. And, perhaps you've also been involved in other programs organized by Diplo or other institutions.
What are the, according to you, the most important pressing issues that you feel, perhaps, coming out of this IGF week you need to build more capacity on or you also think in general stakeholders should be learning more about?
>> Tracy Hackshaw: Yes. Thank you very much, and thanks for the invitation on this panel from the ITU and Diplo.
And yes, I think maybe I'm the only person on the panel who has been exposed to trading from ICANN, ITU, ISOC, South School, and from Diplo. So, I'm (Laughter) I can speak from that. I'm a capacity built person, and from a developing Country. So, I speak from that perspective. In Tobago. in the Caribbean which is a small developing state. Also, one of the Developing Countries, quote, unquote, and one of the things you have to recognize, I think, is in all parts of the world we talk about the three points, online, but the majority of the three point who are not online are from the developing world. So, some of the issues for the governance capacity building will lead to bringing those people online still. So, not only do we have to deal with the issues of being online, but also getting online. So, by that, I'm going to be brief in my topics.
I think the first is we still need to address in this part of the globe are still issues raised to access and accessibility. Strictly speak, access, as we said, we have 3.9 billion that are not online. But still accessibility from all levels. Both in terms of the (?) person with disabilities type of accessibility issues, but also getting the last mile access. So, in many parts of our countries, we are still fraught with challenges in getting last mile access beyond the cities. Rurally located. Getting to cafe or to some Internet hot spot proves to be challenging for persons who are older, persons who are living in socially or economically challenging situations and so O. so accessibility from that respect.
Moving beyond that, once we get online, digital (?) still a major issue, and leading from that, content production. So, again, in our parts of the world, our challenge has always been that we are consumers of content as opposed to producers of content. So, we need some strengthening in the ability to understand how to utilize tools that already exist or build new tools where they don't exist in our languages or in our context to produce content that is more context sure Al to our nations and society.
Linked to that digital inclusion, I spoke briefly about the accessibility before, but truth be told, the interest net is still not seen as a priority of many Governments. I think Tereza brought that point up earlier. So, priorities of water, roads, crime, socialist use, all this (?) so, how do you bring inclusion to the table. So, if we get strengthening both at a level of the grass roots and stakeholders in that level, as well as Governments, gender inclusion, I think that is important.
Again, going down this related list.
Growing in (?) local and global economy and Internet economy. So, how do you participate in the economy both from a DNS using the ICANN example perspective, just from a level of doe mean name, sales, getting that up and running in terms of GTLDs, as well as going straight up to becoming a start up in a doing an Uber in your particular jurisdiction or not, building your own apps that are contextual to your situation. Simply participating from a standpoint of seeing digital economy of another avenue for employment opportunities. We don't see that yet in many parts of the developing world. So, I this I that is something for some opportunity for paucity building. Both from a level of again the employee, the employed and the individual as well as the business people who are looking to branch open to other areas.
And, two links to the final areas. You said increasing resilience of critical infrastructure including critical infrastructure. Again, in developing, those are put on the back burner. We saw recently in the Caribbean and in the Pacific not too far back hurricanes passing through and decimating the entire infrastructure and in some parts of that the Caribbean, they're not back up yet. Islands have been flattened. People have moved out of the islands. There is nobody living there again. Cell towers completely thrown down. ISPs out of business, so to speak. And, how do you come from that level to become a part of the economy again? These are fundamental list views that we need to additional capacity building in an understanding how to get to that level.
And, of course, surrounding all of this cybersecurity, we are very vulnerable to issues to regional hacks. Many of our businesses are linked because they are single band or single ISPs. Many branches with single data centers on one island or another, and when something happens in one island or one part of the Country in least developed state, it slow (?) and dominos effects into other branches. So, you can be easily affected by one single attack. How do we deal with things like that? Are the skills in the Country to deal with that? And can we build those skills quickly enough, so we can better prepare ourselves for the coming challenges we face.
I think that in a nutshell is what I wanted to address.
>> Constance Bommelaer: Thank you very much, Tracy. Before we move to the room to see if any of you have questions and suggestions, I think I'm going to allow myself to ask you a second question, because you're a very unique individual for us. You have gone through all these capacity building programs that we run, and if you had any specific suggestion on how we can improve our programs, and I'm speaking with my Internet society hat, I would be extremely interested in those thoughts.
>> Tracy Hackshaw: So, one of the things I think that -- right now I'm involved with the ISOC youth at IGF fellowship program, and I'm the mentor for that on the ground here. One of the things I think that would help the ambassadorship, the mentorship, the e learning programs that all these agencies have, it was mentioned briefly in several statements how do you make the length from the training and learning that you get to the practical? How do you make it more meaningful to people that sort of use an emersion and how do you make it more easy to participate in an event or come? I think it is not just an opportunity to bring people to the event, which is important, but a so trying to shepherd them into meaningful roles within that event itself. So, for example using the youth as an example. Getting youth on to panel discussions from youth at IGF fellowship I think there is extremely important. I know there are youth sessions and separate sessions for youth, that's great, but how do you mainstream the youth perspective into main sessions, into this room on this panel? And I think the opportunity is for all the cross (?) of programs to lead from the grad witness' on to sessions like this, because I think that is important because they need to see the value of what they've learned and bring their experiences to the table, and I think that is proven that they can make it.
>> Constance Bommelaer: I think the point you make is important because it shows that capacity building programs are not just -- the conversation is not just an academic conversation. How can we improve the quality from an academic perspective, but it shows that these programs, the value is really to strengthen some of these Internet Governance mechanisms? We will not have a vibrant multistakeholder ecosystem if people are not empowered to participate in a meaningful way. So, the point you made about how do we bring in youth, how do we make sure that youth is not having a conversation on its own in a separate workshop session, but rather actually weaved into a conversation with business leaders, with intergovernmental organizations, with leaders from Civil Society I think is absolutely a valuable point.
So, we have on this panel a a number of people who work for organizations who run capacity building programs. I'm sure in the room we have people who would like to benefit from such programs, who perhaps have experienced some of the programs that were offered by some of these organizations. So, perhaps we can turn to the floor now and see if there are any questions, comments, or even suggestions on how to improve any of these activities and curricula.
Any questions from the room? Yes, please. Please briefly
introduce yourself.
>> Audience: Hello, my name is (?). I'm coordinator of the European school of internet governance. I want to bring to your attention maybe some of you I'm sure know already that during this IGF on Day 0 we founded a dynamic coalition on schools and Internet Governance. As it is mentioned in the report, a lot of schools have emerged over the last year and this is a very good trend. The brand SIG school on Internet Governance is known in this Internet Governance area quite well, and we would like to achieve this dynamic coalition collaboration among the schools to improve the learning material, to actually create sort of a brand and allow for a better collaboration among the school and Internet Governance. Anyone in the room that is interested in helping us develop this is very much welcome. I guess would it be soon listed under the dynamic coalitions on the IGF website and I invite everyone in the room to join that dynamic coalition.
Thank you.
>> Constance Bommelaer: Tereza, would you like to react to
that?
>> TEREZA HOREJSOVA: Yeah, thank you for mentioning that, and I think it is an excellent effort. When we were talking about synchronization, from my point of view, I would also stress that we need to go beyond just the schools of Internet Governance, per se, because there are more types of training and the kind of synchronization and coordination in my view is extremely desirable across all the formats of training.
>> Constance Bommelaer: Olga, please.
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Constance. And, of course we welcome the creation of the dynamic coalition that would not only help us coordinating, but also help us learning from each of the different experiences, because we've focused different regions, different target audiences, and different languages with different cultures. And, each of it has different issue to share with others that could enhance. What we have learned also about the general program, it has evolved. I think Tracy mentioned that it has evolved maybe from more technical issues into things more related with public policy, like human rights, freedom of expression, cybersecurity, and so this year we launched the national school of Argentina, which was extremely successful, and also the next one in 2018 we plan to make it really focused in cybersecurity, freedom of expression and privacy. And, with two types of activities, lectures and also a workshop directly trying to simulate developing -- working on policy documents.
Of course, the experience of being in the IGF is unique. You might tell people many things about the IGF, or ICANN, but then you have to go into the session and I think Khaled mentioned having this kind of capacity building before some of the real meetings could be extremely helpful because you have all that information in that moment and then you jump into it.
Thank you. That's for the moment my common.
>> Constance Bommelaer: Thank you very much, Olga. Are there any other questions ocomments,
or panelists?
Yes, please.
>> Audience: Thank you. My name is Pedita from Indonesia with the international society fellowship. I'm really, first of all, grateful for the opportunity to even be having me here and having the opportunity to learn about IGF.
The question that I would like to raise to the panel would be if the panelists -- no, if the stakeholders, government, has already provided the training, the capacity building and it is, of course, (?) to have the venue, the platform to get take exploration, but unfortunately, if there is a condition where youth cannot get the venue to express the exploration, what would be the best approach to remind or to asking, hey, shouldn't we have opportunity to change to showcase what you have given to us, what our expertise is at? I mean you itself has its own expertise. We are the most -- we are the largest number of YouTubers, we have the Instagram endorsement and we all have some expertise and experience that may be useful as well to interest net governance, and how to ensure that the commitment of giving the opportunity to the youth can be dealt.
Thank you.
>> Constance Bommelaer: The question, and correct me if I didn't understand it correctly, but if I'm understanding, how can we facilitate the integration of youth in these capacity building programs. And, you're also saying that in any case, youth is probably better connected than other generations, and you will find a way to express your thoughts to share your ideas on YouTube to make sure that your point of view is taken on board.
Is that it?
>> Audience: No. Sorry. What I mean is, we as one of the stakeholders, we should have the right, like what Tracy said, to be on the panel, to be able to share our aspiration, but what if we do not have that opportunity? What would be the best way to remind or best approach to demand it, to demand the opportunity to have -- to share our aspiration and to share our experience. Yeah.
>> Thank you. Thank you very much for bringing up the important aspect of youth, which in fact is also a topic that ITU is specifically focusing on. We have actually a program specifically looking at how to reach out to the youth, and I think there is two sides to it. I mean, you talked about how youth can actually be on this side. There is also the other side of how actually to reach out to youth and make sure that they are also being trained. So, I think we need to look at both of these angles.
We have programs that are looking specifically on training for youth, which is the other side of it to make sure, because in the future that is one of the main issues in most of the Developing Countries, how to ensure that youth are being trained in terms of the ICT skills and the digital skills. So, that's a very important part of the capacity building, as well. But, on the other hand, when we actually do and do workshops, to also have young people present on the other side and share their own experience and their own views. I think that is very important point and we are also trying to do that and we are very welcome to suggestions on how to reach out and to which organizations so we can make that link to have youth represented on both sides as a user, but also as part of delivery experts, let's say, to share their own experiences and the issues that are important to them.
So, think that I that's a very good point. Thank you very much for bringing that up.
>> Constance Bommelaer: Your question has triggered a lot of
interest from our panelists, so obviously I think it is a very
good question. I think we have Olga.
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you Constance. Using my ISOC hat now, you have the special interest of youth, that's a very good place where you can participate online or in the organized, they are present in this IGF, because they are a large group, and there are youth young participants from all over the world. That is one place.
Also, having in mind that you have the possibility of remote participating in many, many of the events now. Before it was rarely, but now you can participate in ICANN meetings, in the IGF, in our school of governance. I think Diplo has a lot of online resources. Use the Internet as you very well know how to use it.
Thank you.
>> Constance Bommelaer: And Tracy, please.
>> Tracy Hackshaw: I am a big fan of being bold. If you are not a panel, stop us in the corridors and get your views across. Stop us in the corridors. Stop us in the elevator. Say, you know, I've heard this in your session, this is not exactly what we believe, this is the context that we want to operate in, here is what I want to do, let me sit with you, let's have a discussion, I have some friends that want to talk to you, Vint Cerf of, Constance, let's talk. Because one of the things that you will fail to realize is that we're all humans, so everybody here will listen. We're not going to walk past you. And, I think it's important for youth, if you're not brought to the table, which you should demand that you get to the table, then you should find a way that -- if you're not getting the
main meal, get at least the dessert. Don't be afraid to ask questions and to interrogate. I think that is one of the things that youth may have a challenge with, that you feel a little bit intimidated or lack some confidence. Just do it. You know, make it happen and get it done, because the next IGF, they remember you. No, that guy, yeah, let me reach out to him and let me get him on the panel, because you will be surprised that many of the panelists would love to have you here, but they don't know who you are and how to reach you. So, make yourself known, make your presence known, and I think that is a good importance. It started now.
>> Constance Bommelaer: I think I'm going to take your word for it. If you would like to come and sit at my seat, and I'm going to finish moderating the session from the room, please.
(Applause)
>> Constance Bommelaer: I think Tereza wanted to make a general suggestion.
>> TEREZA HOREJSOVA: I got one idea on the synchronization aspect. It has been clear that many of us appreciate the emersion opportunities. And, for instance what has happened to me before the IGF, while there are many organizations offering some fellowships. What was happening before the IGF, I was approached by some of our alumni numbers, hey, Tereza sorry it didn't work out with this organization or that, would you maybe have some means. I think all of the informaition, many of us I think at this table had some of the news how to bring some people in. For instance, for Diplo, we had now some fellowship for people from specific countries, specific regions. Why don't we like pull together before major events to which we are bringing people, say, hey, listen, I can bring this number of people from this Country or stakeholder groups, and it might be also much more efficient for the youth, for the kind of participants that we are funding in a kind of uncoordinated way. And, it could be very practical solution.
But, over back to you, Mr. Moderator.
>> Okay. So, now because I am acting as the moderator, I would like to invite more comments and questions from the floor (Laughter).
Oh, yes, please, sir.
>> Lost my thing. Adam Peek from ICANN, and my role at ICANN is to help with Civil Society and academic engagement. So, this is very relevant to what we do.
And, we do have structure. ICANN, of course, has a mission to develop policies for the domain name systems, so we don't have a broad agreement to include, say, for example, youth specifically. But we do try to encourage young people to get involved.
One of the problems is that we're not a university, so we're not teaching people how to be policy experts. What we're trying to take is people with policy skills and then helping them develop policy for the specific area of the domain name system.
And we do that through a very structured program of fellowships, we have three meetings a year. So, we're talking about emersion. We have three meetings a year around the world and we bring around 60 people to those -- each much those meetings as fellows. And, so there has been about a thousand people so far who have been brought into this system through that.
And, the idea is they're not just left to roam free in the meeting, they have coaches and mentors who help guide them. So, if they're people from a government, then they have people from governmental experience, people like Tracy who would pick up a couple of people and help guide them through the me go.
We also have a next gen program, next generation. This is more youth oriented. People between the ages of 18 and 30 who are all in full time education, and we bring between 20 and 30 of those to each meeting. So, there will be around 300 over the years who have been brought through you that program. Again, they're being specifically guided through programs and workshops and so on that go on ICANN that are relevant to their interests. So, if you're interested in cybersecurity, then you will be guided through a tract of workshops that is relevant. If you're interested in legal issues and so on.
So, that is the way we structure it. I think there is obviously if it is a generic sort of meeting like the IGF, that is somewhat different. We're also very involved in Internet Governance schools. We support a number and we tend to speak at them and bring knowledge together of the domain name system ICANN multistakeholder models and also general knowledge about these things.
Anyway, that is sort of what ICANN is doing, adding to what Khaled said earlier on.
Thank you.
>> Moderator: Thank you. I think we have --
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you. Unfortunately, I have to leave. I have to catch my plane. Thank you for organizing the workshop and for your comments and share your knowledge with us, and happy holidays. Happy Christmas and happy new year. Thank you everyone.
>> Moderator: Because we have empty seat on the panel, I think I would like to invite the original moderator to get back down on the table.
>> Constance Bommelaer: Thank you very much.
Are there any final questions before, perhaps, Susan wraps up this conversation, any final questions, comments, suggestions? Again, if you have thoughts on how any of these institutions can improve their capacity building programs, please share them. There is a lot of money that is invested in capacity building, and it's very important to us to make sure we do it the right way. We're learning, for instance, that we can use better some of the -- some new tools. We have new ways now to do remote sessions, which allow us to not necessarily always fly in people to train them physically. So, any feedback, any suggestions I think would be extremely, extremely helpful.
I think with that, perhaps, I'll ask Susan to wrap up the conversation. Thank you very much.
>> SUSAN TELTSCHER: Thank you. Thank you very much,
Constance.
What was your name?
>> Bradipa.
>> SUSAN TELTSCHER: Okay. Congratulations.
>> Thank you.
>> SUSAN TELTSCHER: Was this the first time on moderation?
>> Yeah. Not the first time in my life, but this is my first time in IGF.
>> SUSAN TELTSCHER: Okay. Very good. Let me give you an applause.
(Applause)
>> SUSAN TELTSCHER: Thank you, Constance. I love the swapping that you just did. This was excellent. So, I think this is a good way of how we should approach our future work. We should be very responsive, and we should be listening and react accordingly, so that was a great example of having immediate action.
So, I think we are already running a bit late, and you may be wanting to go for lunch, but I would like to thank everybody for having participated in this panel and also for you coming and joining us. I think we will continue to work together in terms of the providers of capacity development, the different institutions. We have already had other previous chances to work together. We will continue to do that. I think this is one of the issues that comes up always to coordinate our work and make sure that we are not working completely in isolation. And, we will try to do that also in the future and respond to issues that are being brought up to us. So, please feel free to always make suggestions on what we should be doing in this field, and I would like to invite you to look at the ITU academy portal. This is our main website for our training and capacity building activities.
We are starting to create a new space specifically for Internet Governance from which we also are going to link to the different other organizations work, and we are welcome to any suggestions if you know of important work in this field, just let us know and we are going to also provide links to those programs so that we can -- that's another way of trying to coordinate and reach out and bring together the different activities.
So, thank you very much, again, especially to Constance, Tereza, Tracy, Olga had to leave for the plane, and also Khaled for joining us here on this panel, and thank you all, and I wish you good lunch.
Thank you.
(Applause)
(Panel concluded)